Rainy day in Shenzhen

It's rainy here today.  A cold rain.  I finally got a post out.  Took awhile.  When your customer wants to visit the factory on weekends, including Sunday, it really doesn't leave much time for any reflection.

I finally went out last night.  I've been back in Shenzhen for a few weeks now.  How busy have I been?  Until last night, I'd spent less than 200 rmb!  I was always eating at the factory!   The project with the customer is behind schedule.   Greatly behind schedule.  The customer is pissed off, rightly so, in a big, big way.  And I'm the face of the supplier.  So it sucks.  Nothing is worse when someone below you fucks up, and you, as the project mgr, have to take the blame.  That doesn't keep me from letting the mgr of the fuckup know what I think of that particular person's actions.  The customer thinks I'm pretty much an incompetent waste of oxygen.  Yet I think their finally understanding the product they want to make is just not very manufactureable.

And that is not my fault!

Still I need to make some money on this, and it doesn't look like I'll make anything until May, which is greatly annoying.

I've got a list of stuff on my mind to write about.  Prob once I get home, to some normal cold weather, I can do just that.   I'm looking forward to getting home, rising before dawn, and at sunrise walking abt in my subdivision.  Deathly quiet.  The Still Cold.  This is my way of letting my neighbors know I've returned.  We've less than 70 houses in our neighborhood, they catch on fast.   At least I'll have a few days to appreciate the runup to Xmas.  Wasn't so for Tgiving.

I'm looking fwd to seeing my kids.  We got them two kittens a month ago.  They like the cats.  It's cool.  I can honestly say I have no greater joy in my life than having a conversation with my kids.  I believe this is probably the best way to develop their EQ as well.

And of course I'm looking fwd to seeing my wife, for all the wrong reasons, when I get home.  (Trust, me she's looking fwd to seeing me, too)

I have no earthly idea what I'm gonna get her for Xmas.  I need to spend time on that.   I bought myself a decent pair of headphones for the plane(and that damn loud Shenzhen subway).  It's not that cold here of course...it's abt 70 on an ave day, but it's in the 50's now.   That's abt 18 and 15 degrees for the rest of you.  The Chinese just get a kick out of me in my rolled up sleeves listening to my music on the subway.  I'm their perfect prop.

Last time I was home for a week before coming back over here.  She couldn't wait for me to leave...well, she may be stuck with me in Jan, we'll wait and see.

This is my first stop at Starbucks in quite awhile.  The Carols make sense now.   I like Xmas.  Just not in China.  The Chinese don't get Xmas.   (I'm sure they hate CNY in the States' as well.) They look at it as another excuse to go out.  To a Club, to a KTV.  What have you.  The girl looks at it as another opportunity to get a gift.  The guy as an opportunity to maybe pick someone up.

Going out last night was a great relief.  It helped to blow off alot of steam.  
I saw a gorgeous girl in a long white, well fitting, lace dress, that fell down below her ankles.  With a rather unattractive Man, of course.   Yet another waste of talent.  This country is overflowing with beautiful women that will never know what it's like to have good sex, and that's a shame.

I saw an old friend of mine there, with his wife.  She's 6 foot tall, and pretty, but not overwhelmingly so.   Her husband studied in England, and is a "Fu er dai", or 2nd gen wealth.   He's a cool dude.

The bar in a club can be alot of fun.  I met a Russian and a Pole.  I teased them as it seemed they both got along just fine....(see my earlier post related to that).   The Russian was texting in Russian and hick that I am I just couldn't get over that.   Then he fell right into stereotype when he saw my Bacardi and asked me if it was vodka.....

 Then I saw something just dumb.  Alot of the clubs just don't like us laowai.  We don't buy bottles of Chivas.  (because we aren't stupid...?)

Two laowai, a chick and some teacher dude bought one bottle of Heinken for 50 rmb...and split it!
WTF is that abt?   I rolled my eyes when they asked for 2 glasses.   And that was after they looked at the drink menu for 10 minutes.  I swear Heineken must be in English on the menu.

Then again there's a laowai  restaurant right next to this club, and just chock full of laowai.  For the life of me, though, once you've had a nice full dinner with your friends, I just don't understand why they linger.  Watching rugby?  Why have a drink in a restaurant when you can go have one in a club?   I just think it's boring actually to have a drink at a table, with the humming of Aussies rules football in the background.

My blog....I've evolved enough now to stop focusing on views.  I go days now without ever logging on.   But I do maintain an ongoing interest in where my viewers are.....and I miss you Latvia!

Nepal.....pls come back!

I will say the majority of my views are from the States'.  I realize that I prob subconsciously write with a slant, ie using the USA as a basis comparison, but what can I say?  That's what I know.   I greatly enjoy writing, as a hobby, and I tremendously enjoy the ability to write on this thing...people say blogs are dead....and I can't seem to understand why folks would say that?  How can you express your thoughts properly on twitter?

Or Facebook?

My friends tell me to get on Weixin...but I enjoy the remoteness of not overly involving myself with Social Media.    Leave a comment....send a text....that's good enough.   If someone really wants to blow me off because I'm not hip enough...well....I'm more than old enough not to take it too hard...and I can always blog!